We are the leader in gunshot detection solutions that help law enforcement
officials and security personnel identify, locate and respond to gun violence.
We offer our software solutions on a SaaS-based subscription model to customers
around the world, with current customers located in the United States and South
Africa. Our public safety solution, ShotSpotter Flex, is deployed in urban,
high-crime areas to help deter gun violence by accurately detecting and locating
gunshots and sending near real-time alerts to law enforcement. Our security
solutions, SST SecureCampus and ShotSpotter SiteSecure, are designed to help
law enforcement and security personnel serving universities, corporate campuses
and key infrastructure and transportation centers mitigate risk and enhance
security by notifying authorities and first responders of an active-shooter
event occurring in our deployment area almost immediately. The speed and accuracy
of our solutions enable rapid response by law enforcement and security personnel,
increase the chances of apprehending the shooter, aid in evidentiary collection
and can serve as an overall deterrent.
Our solutions consist of our highly-specialized, cloud-based software integrated
with our proprietary, internet-enabled sensors and communication networks. When
a potential gunfire incident is detected by our sensors, our software analyzes
and validates the data and precisely locates where the incident occurred. An
alert containing a location on a map and critical information about the incident
is transmitted directly to subscribing law enforcement or security personnel
through any internet-connected computer and to iPhone® or Android mobile
devices.
For gunshots occurring outdoors, our software transmits the validated sensor
data along with a recorded digital file of the triggering sound to our Incident
Review Center (“IRC”), where our trained acoustic experts are on
duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to screen and confirm
actual gunfire incidents. Our acoustic experts can supplement alerts with additional
tactical information, such as the potential presence of multiple shooters or
the use of high-capacity weapons. For outdoor gunshot incidents reviewed by
our IRC, alerts are typically sent within 45 seconds of the gunfire incident.
We generate annual subscription revenues from the deployment of our public
safety solution on a per-square-mile basis. As of December 31, 2017, we had
77 public safety customers with coverage areas of approximately 510 square miles
in 88 cities and municipalities across the United States, including three of
the ten largest cities in the United States. In 2014, we began selling two security
solutions, SST SecureCampus and ShotSpotter SiteSecure, which are typically
sold on a subscription basis, each with a customized deployment plan. As of
December 31, 2017, we had seven security customers covering eight higher-education
campuses, of which all customer solutions are fully deployed. SST SecureCampus
and ShotSpotter SiteSecure are designed to detect either outdoor gunfire utilizing
our outdoor sensors, or both indoor and outdoor gunfire utilizing a combination
of our outdoor and indoor sensors. To date, while we have seen growing interest
in our security solutions, interest in the indoor gunshot detection offering
has been limited. We expect future customer deployments for our security solutions
to consist primarily of outdoor gunshot detection deployments. We are evaluating
our options with regard to our indoor gunshot detection offering, which may
include ceasing to offer indoor gunshot detection or partnering with an indoor
gunshot detection solution provider. For the year ended December 31, 2017, substantially
all of our revenues are attributable to customers based in the United States.
Our solutions consist of our highly-specialized, cloud-based software integrated
with our proprietary, internet-enabled sensors and connected through third-party
communication networks. We brand our solutions based on particular use cases
and target customers as follows:
ShotSpotter Flex. ShotSpotter Flex, our public safety solution, serves cities
and municipalities seeking to identify, locate and deter persistent, localized
gun violence by incorporating a real-time gunshot detection system into their
policing systems.
SST SecureCampus. SST SecureCampus helps the law enforcement and security personnel
serving universities, colleges and other educational institutions mitigate risk
and enhance security by notifying authorities and first responders of an active-shooter
event almost immediately.
ShotSpotter SiteSecure. ShotSpotter SiteSecure is designed to serve customers
such as corporations trying to safeguard their facilities and public agencies
focused on protecting critical infrastructure, including train stations, airports
and freeways.
ShotSpotter Flex is designed to detect outdoor gunfire only using our proprietary
outdoor sensors. SST SecureCampus and ShotSpotter SiteSecure are designed to
detect either outdoor gunfire utilizing outdoor sensors, or both indoor and
outdoor gunfire utilizing a combination of our outdoor and indoor sensors. To
date, while we have seen growing interest in all of our solutions, interest
in the indoor gunshot detection offering has been limited. We expect future
customer deployments for our security solutions to consist primarily of outdoor
gunshot detection deployments. We are evaluating our options with regard to
our indoor gunshot detection offering, which may include ceasing to offer indoor
gunshot detection or partnering with an indoor gunshot detection solution provider.
When a potential gunfire incident is detected by our sensors, our software
uses quantitative computational analysis and artificial intelligence methods
to precisely locate and classify the sound. A digital alert containing map and
location information about the incident is transmitted directly to subscribing
law enforcement or security personnel through any internet-connected computer
and to iPhone® or Android mobile devices.
For gunshots occurring outdoors, our software transmits the validated sensor
data along with a recorded digital file of the triggering sound to our IRC,
where our trained acoustic experts are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, 365 days a year to screen and confirm actual gunfire incidents. Our acoustic
experts can supplement alerts with additional tactical information, such as
the potential presence of multiple shooters or the use of high-capacity weapons.
For outdoor gunshot incidents reviewed by our IRC, alerts are typically sent
within 45 seconds of the gunfire incident. For gunshots occurring indoors, our
solutions are designed to automatically alert security personnel within ten
seconds.
The heart of our solutions is our sophisticated and highly-specialized software.
Our software analyzes audio signals for potential gunshots first in our intelligent
sensors. Our sensor then filters out ambient background noise, such as traffic
or wind, and looks for impulsive sounds characteristic of gunfire. If the sensor
detects such an impulse, it extracts pulse features of the soundwave, such as
sharpness, strength, duration, rise time and decay time. Then, the sensor sends
these features to our cloud servers as part of a data packet that includes the
location coordinates of the reporting sensor and the precise time-of-arrival
and angle-of-arrival of the sound.
When the data reaches to our cloud servers, our software assesses whether three
or more of our outdoor sensors detected the same sound impulse and, if so, multilaterates
the location coordinates of the sound source based on the time of arrival and
the angle of arrival of the sound. The software then verifies that the data
is mathematically consistent with the sound having originated at a single location.
The accuracy of the coordinates derived from our proprietary software is significantly
improved when more than three sensors participate, as is typically the case.
We deploy our sensor arrays such that, on average, eight sensors participate
in the detection of a gunshot.
After the software determines the location of the sound source, the machine
classifier algorithms analyze the pulse features to determine if the sound is
likely to be gunfire. Our algorithms consider pulse features, the distance from
the sound source, pattern matching and other heuristic methods to evaluate and
classify the sound. The machine classifier is periodically trained and validated
against a large database of known gunfire and other community sounds that are
impulsive in nature. We continue to add new data to our machine learning database
from the incidents reviewed by our acoustic experts in our IRC process. Classification
continuously improves as the machine classifiers are re-trained using the expanded
data set.
Once an outdoor incident is classified as likely gunfire, it is sent to the
acoustic experts in our IRC for additional analysis and confirmation. Along
with confirming an incident is gunfire, our acoustic experts also annotate the
alerts with additional information that may be helpful to first responders,
such as whether there are multiple shooters or if a high-capacity or fully automatic
weapon is being used. The time from outdoor trigger-pull to a notification being
sent to our customers is typically 45 seconds or less.
Compared to outdoor sensors, our indoor sensors are likely to be close to the
shooting event and have a direct line of sight to the gunfire. Our indoor sensors
therefore are designed to detect optical characteristics in the infrared spectrum
of the gunfire muzzle flash, in addition to the acoustic characteristics of
the muzzle blast, thereby significantly increasing the ability of machine classification.
The location of indoor gunshots is determined by knowing the location of the
installed sensors and time stamping the pulse arrival time. The sensor with
the earliest time stamp determines the location of the shooter. Because the
information from the acoustic and infrared transducers is sufficient to make
a reliable computer classification of the sound as gunfire, indoor gunshot incidents
are not reviewed by our IRC. In the case of an indoor gunshot, the time from
trigger-pull to notification is typically less than ten seconds.
Incidents of suspected indoor gunfire automatically trigger emergency response
notifications that are simultaneously delivered and made available online. Outdoor
incident notifications are sent when the incident is confirmed as gunfire by
one of our acoustic experts. Alerts are delivered by SMS text and push notifications
and, in the case of outdoor gunfire, also through our mobile applications.
Our rugged gunshot detection sensor is an intelligent, internet-enabled device
that is specially built to ignore ambient noise and respond to impulsive sounds,
accurately time-stamping their arrival times. Advanced digital signal processing
algorithms extract pulse features from the audio signal that, along with the
time and angle of arrival of the sound, are sent to our servers where algorithms
compute the location of the sound source.
Our sensors are designed and tested against international standards for installation
in unprotected outdoor environments. Special consideration is given to minimize
the sound of wind, rain and hail, which could otherwise limit the range of detection
and produce false results. Environmental condition tests performed on the sensors
include temperature cycling, temperature soak, shock, vibration, salt fog and
moisture ingress protection.
For outdoor deployments, we typically design and deploy arrays of 20 to 25
sensors per square mile taking into consideration the unique acoustic environment
in which we are deploying. The cumulative experience of deploying in various
cities with different acoustic properties has provided a distinct advantage
in tailoring our sensor arrays to perform at high levels. We have full telemetry
to each sensor that provides detailed heartbeat data to our system to monitor
each sensor’s health and availability. Sensor firmware is maintained with
over-the-air updates. Because we purposely over-deploy our sensor arrays, multiple
sensors can be offline at any given time without affecting the overall performance
of the system.
To date, while we have seen growing interest in our security solutions, interest
in the indoor gunshot detection offering has been limited. We expect future
customer deployments for our security solutions to consist primarily of outdoor
gunshot detection deployments. We are evaluating our options with regard to
our indoor gunshot detection offering, which may include ceasing to offer indoor
gunshot detection or partnering with an indoor gunshot detection solution provider.
Our IRC operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. When a
loud impulsive sound triggers enough of our outdoor sensors that an incident
is detected and located, audio from the incident is sent to our IRC via secure,
high-speed network connections for real-time confirmation. Within seconds of
an incident, one of our acoustic experts analyzes audio data and recordings
of the potential gunfire. When gunfire is confirmed, our IRC team sends an alert
directly to emergency dispatch centers and field personnel through any computer
or mobile device with access to the Internet. This process typically takes less
than 45 seconds from the time of the gunshot. Alerts include:
the precise location of gunfire, including both latitude/longitude and street
address;
the number and exact time of shots fired;
the number of shooters; and
if detectable, the use of fully automatic or high-capacity weapons.
Our IRC operates primarily out of our principal facilities in Newark, California
and receives audio from incidents detected by our outdoor sensors regardless
of where such incidents occur. Although our IRC currently operates at a single
location, our trained personnel can perform IRC functions from any location
that has a high-speed internet connection.